


Timothy Stoker and the War on Christmas

by cheshirecrime



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Antisemitism, Christmas, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Hanukkah, Jewish Character, Jewish Holidays, The Magnus Archives (Podcast) as a Workplace Comedy, fuck Elias too, fuck christmas actually, the entire archive staff is jewish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:13:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28145151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheshirecrime/pseuds/cheshirecrime
Summary: Tim wages a one-man war on the frankly obnoxious Christmas decorations in the archives. Shenanigans ensue.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 52





	Timothy Stoker and the War on Christmas

Night 1- Monday, December 7

It was the first night of Hanukkah, and the Magnus Institute did not care about its employees. At least, that’s how Tim saw it.

“There’s no way this is a coincidence,” he complained, after entering the archives and seeing the frankly obnoxious Christmas decorations that had appeared seemingly overnight. Tinsel covered every surface. Paper snowflakes and Santa hat cutouts hung from the ceiling. On each of their desks, a Christmas tree paperweight. On every door, a garland. On the end of each shelf, a stocking. An Elf on the Shelf with an unnerving stare guarded the door to Jon’s office.

Sasha nudged him out of the way as she came in behind him. “Yes, there is. Do you really think Elias cares enough to keep track of when the Jewish holidays are _just_ so he can annoy us? I don’t even think he knows we’re Jewish.”

“Oh, he knows. He knows and he’s trying to fuck with us. You see how weirdly obsessed he is with the archives. He knows that all four of us are Jewish and that’s why the archives are nauseatingly red and green.”

“I doubt it. Besides, what are you going to do about it if he is?”

Before Tim could answer, Jon scuttled past him, making a beeline for his office as he did every morning. Before closing the door, he looked around at the state of the archives with a scowl that seemed slightly more disdainful than usual.

“Terribly unprofessional. This is an archive, not a shopping mall. Anyway, get to work. I expect the follow-up to the Lensik statement to be done before Wednesday.”

None of the archive assistants argued, and they started work. A few moments of silence passed before Martin, who had previously gone unnoticed, let out a groan from his desk. He was clutching his head in his hands and generally looked to be having an unpleasant time.

“You okay, Martin?” Sasha asked.

Martin pulled his hands down his face to look up at her and sighed. “Fine. Just- peppermint smell. It’s one of my headache triggers.”

Tim did a poor job of hiding his vindication. Whether it was intentional or not, the Christmas decorations were causing him and his coworkers significant distress. Or at least, it was causing one of his coworkers significant distress. Granted, it didn’t take much to cause Martin significant distress, but to Tim, it was enough. The war on Christmas had begun, even if he was the only soldier.

Night 2- Tuesday, December 8

The decorations should be gone. Tim, in a very generous move, had offered to cover Martin and Sasha’s tasks the night before so they wouldn’t have to work overtime on the first night of the holiday. At least, that’s what he told Jon. For once, Tim was the last to leave the archives, not Jon, and he was sure to take the decorations home too (save for the elf, which he found too creepy to even approach). When he left for work the next morning, the electric menorah he used at uni came with him. If the institute was going to be obnoxious about its holiday, Tim could be the tiniest bit annoying about his.

Unfortunately, when he returned to the archives, he was greeted with the same horrendous, overbearing tinsel he thought he had already vanquished. As if things weren’t bad enough, the boss wanted a word with him.

Jon’s office was something of a respite. Apparently Elias cared enough for Jon’s boundaries not to change the decor. Either that, or Jon had gotten rid of his himself.

“Tim, did you steal institute property?”

“Oh, is that what he’s calling it?”

“What are you- Tim, did you take the decorations home or not?”

“I had every intention of bringing them back once Hanukkah is over.”

“I don’t like them either, but the point stands that there are other- more mature- ways to handle this. If you had come to me, I could have looked into asking Elias to get rid of them. Instead, you now have a warning from HR about theft.”

“Look, I’ll return the decorations. Which, for the record, I was going to do anyway. But can you please at least see if you can do something about whatever’s making that peppermint smell? Martin won’t stop complaining about his headaches.”

“I’m not sure how much luck I’ll have after the little stunt you pulled, but I will see what strings I can pull about getting the decorations removed. I find them just as insufferable as you do, and I certainly wouldn’t want you to have to deal with Martin’s complaining longer than you have to.”

Satisfied, Tim returned to his desk. He made eye contact with the Elf on the Shelf as he turned on his electric menorah, and began to work.

Night 3- Wednesday, December 9

There was good news, and there was bad news.

The good news is that the archive’s decorations had been considerably scaled back. There was no more peppermint smell. The tinsel, paperweights, and stockings had disappeared. All that remained, it seemed, were the snowflakes and that goddamned elf.

The bad news was that Elias wanted to see Tim.

After his lunch break, Tim regrettably let his feet carry him to Elias’s office.

He was wearing a Santa hat.

For some ungodly reason, Elias had started wearing a Santa hat to work, paired with a new Christmas-themed lapel pin each day. Tim had seen worse bosses on this front, but he would have expected the head of an academic institutionsuch as this to be a bit less festive than the department store manager Tim worked under as a teenager.

“Double boss. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Well, Tim, I want to make sure you understand that the… festivities here are all in good fun. We don’t want to push any religion onto anyone else, and we try to have an atmosphere everyone can participate in. We’re a secular organization.”

Tim stiffened. He hoped this wasn’t going where he thought it was. “It seems we’re on the same page, then,” he said, in the most diplomatic tone he could muster.

“I would think so. Which is why we can’t have that menorah on your desk out anymore. It’s against company policy, I’m afraid.”

Tim had to bite his tongue. There were a million snappy retorts flying through his mind, and almost every one of them would lead to him losing his job. Instead of any of those, he put the most restraint he could in his voice to simply say, “Understood. Is there anything else you wanted?”

“That will be all for now, I think.” Elias gave Tim that sickening smile, and Tim managed to leave without doing anything he’d regret.

Night 4- Thursday, December 10

“Alright. What are we going to do about this?” Sasha was on the warpath now, which was unfortunate, because Tim was just about to give up.

“We can’t take down anything Elias puts up, but we also can’t put up anything of our own. If you figure out something we can do, let me know. Besides, we’re halfway through Hanukkah and the worst of the decorations in the archives are gone. It’s not really worth it just to delay things until…” he counted the days on his hands. “Tuesday.”

“This isn’t just about the decorations anymore. What Elias is doing is literally antisemitism. He can’t force us to participate in Christmas and then tell us we can’t celebrate Hanukkah in the archives. It’s _our_ workspace anyway, not his.”

“Sasha’s right.” Martin agreed. “I don’t know what to do either, but I sure as hell don’t like you giving up, Tim. Plus, that elf is starting to _really_ creep me out.”

Tim started to piece some things together. “Wait- Sasha- have you actually _seen_ Elias down here this week?”

“No… why do you ask?”

“Then how did he know I stole the decorations? Or had my menorah out? He _never_ comes down here. Not without a reason. Are there any security cameras in here?”

“No cameras in the archives.” Tim didn’t notice Jon was standing in the open doorway to his office until he spoke up. “This part of the building wasn’t fitted with them. No idea why. I think it was a decision Gertrude made.”

“That’s what I thought. So either one of us is a snitch, which I highly doubt, or he’s somehow spying on us.” Tim let the accusation settle before Sasha finally called bullshit.

“Tim, you’re not seriously implying that he planted a camera in the elf, are you?”

“No!” He lied. “I just think it’s weird. Anyway, have any of you talked to the other departments? Maybe they’re having the same issues we are.”

“I mean, decorations in artifact storage has to be some kind of safety hazard. We never had them when I worked there,” Sasha reasoned.

“Research has as many decorations as we did earlier. I was up there the other day. And the break room- well, you’ve all seen it.” They all shuddered. Tim had been forced to take up Martin’s tea duties to save him from the smell. And the everything else about the current state of the break room.

“Alright. Here’s the plan. Tomorrow, we-”

“I’m going to go back into my office now.” Jon interrupted in an even more formal tone than usual. “If I were able to, I’d say you have my full support, but obviously I would never disobey company policy so flagrantly. And of course, it’d be a shame if I left early tonight. Who knows what the three of you could get up to without my supervision.” Jon picked up the elf and took it into his office with him.

“Did Jon just… wink?” Martin asked incredulously.

Tim smiled. “Yes, I think he did.”

Night 5- Friday, December 11

The archives were now mission control. Jon had mysteriously fallen ill, and the assistants had the place to themselves. Martin was running reports back and forth from artifact storage, Sasha from research. Tim sat in control of it all, resolving conflicts and drawing plans. He had gone from being the only participant in his war on Christmas to being general of at least a dozen soldiers. He couldn’t leave the archives- being directly implicated could cost him his job. All he could really do was wait.

Tim’s plan was simple, really. He was very experienced in being an annoyance. The trick to getting the change you want done is to make the current state of things more inconvenient for everyone else than the alternative. He and his coworkers had done just that. If Elias wants festivities, that’s what he’ll get. The good thing about having a library of cursed artifacts at your workplace is that some of them work surprisingly well as Christmas decorations. The artifact storage workers were a bit too enthusiastic to unleash them on the rest of the institute, but Tim tried not to mind. It’s for a good cause.

Research had already filed a number of complaints about the decorations. While none of them were Jewish (to Tim’s knowledge), quite a few of them were very much not Christian. They were all too happy to help. The thing about an unhappy workforce: they’re very eager to do any task that isn’t work. Sasha had gotten a few of them to pool some resources together for as much cheap tinsel as they could find. Currently, they were focusing their fire on the lobby. While Rosie wasn’t clued into the plan, she was perfectly content to let some extra decorations in. She was always one for glitter. Tim didn’t let the fact that her usual bowl of candy had been replaced with gelt escape his notice. It’s the little victories.

The lobby wasn’t the big target, though. The real battle came later, during Elias’s lunch break. The hallway to his office was woefully empty of cheer, in Tim’s opinion. He had noticed over the week that the nauseating peppermint smell stopped just short of all of the places Elias regularly worked. Tim intended to fix that.

On top of it all, a note to be left on Elias’s desk (typed, obviously, to avoid definite proof of Tim’s involvement). It read: “The employees of the Magnus Institute wish you a very happy **holidays**.”

Night 8- Monday, December 14

Tim high-fived Sasha on his way into the office. The building was blissfully, gloriously free of decorations. Turns out, losing an entire day of work from every single one of his employees isn’t something Elias is willing to risk again. He had deemed the decorations an “unnecessary distraction” and put an end to it all himself. Jon had recovered from whatever had been ailing him on Friday, and he seemed ever so slightly more cheerful than usual.

Towards the end of the day, Martin laughed to himself at his desk.

“Would you like to share with the class?” Sasha asked.

“No- I just- it’s all a bit Judah Maccabee, isn’t it? Fending off the oppressive forces that tried to snuff us out, or whatever? It’s just… fitting, I guess.”

“Don’t start calling him that, it’ll go to his head.” Jon leaned against his doorframe. “But the thought did cross my mind, yes.”

“One thing’s been bothering me, though,” Sasha said. “Whatever happened to that elf? Is it still in your office?”

Jon frowned. “Come to think of it, no. I had completely forgotten about it, but I know I left it on my desk on Thursday, and it wasn’t there this morning.”

“That’s… ominous.” Martin said.

“Well, best not to worry too much about it. Elias probably stole it back with the other decorations.” Jon reasoned, in his usual I-don’t-want-to-acknowledge-anything-I-can’t-explain voice. He sat silent, clearly trying to say something but not quite knowing how, for a few moments. “Do you three have any plans tonight? I, uh, haven’t had anyone to light the candles with all week. I figured, well, after your little victory, and it’s our last chance-”

“We’d love to, boss.” Tim interrupted Jon before he could get any more flustered. “After all, yours truly just performed a miracle. Why shouldn’t we celebrate?”

Everything was as it should be, for one final night of the Festival of Lights.


End file.
